AÏE
OUCH! |
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Director/
Writer: Sophie Fillières
Cast: Robert: André Dussolier; Aïe: Hélène
Fillières; Claire: Emmanuelle Devos; Robert’s mother: Gisèle
Casadesus; Robert’s father: Lucien Pascal.
Running time: 103'
Year of production: 2000
Rating: Not rated
Gauge: 35mm
Distributor: New Yorker Films
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“Aïe
is a surprise. A kind of disorienting spring shower, fresh and unexpected,
its comic style grabs us from behind like a Judo expert.” Olivier
Séguret, Libération. |
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In
a cafe, Robert, a lonely, chronically lovesick bachelor in his fifties,
beset by existential angst, spots an attractive young woman eating
her lunch. Hesitantly he attempts to chat her up. Marie-Pierre, alias
Aïe, is an apprentice model working as a waitress. When Robert
remarks on how much she eats, she replies with show-stopping frankness
that she throws it all up afterwards which, although effective, makes
one’s breath stink. She then asks if Robert would like her to
fall in love with him. Perplexed by her manner, he nevertheless says
“yes” and they arrange to meet again. The film follows the
awkward courtship of two timid self-protective souls who long to fall
in love but lack the courage. Aïe’s brazen manner turns
out to be a shield, and the more intimate they become, the stranger
and more tortuous are the stories she recounts about herself, designed
as they are to both hide and reveal. This delicate, subtle film, although
comic, reveals little by little a pervasive malaise at its heart.
The occasionally acrid humor, emphasized by the focus of some of the
jokes--vomiting, diaphragms, rotting umbilical cords--offsets an essentially
tender love story, with newcomer Hélène Fillières,
sister of the director, giving a raw, luminous performance as Aïe.
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| PHOTO Courtesy
of New Yorker Films |
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